What Good Are Graduate Level 'Experience Degrees'?

There is a lot of moaning and groaning going on concerning the validity of degrees which are granted by some institutions based on one's experience. These institutions usually grant the degree based on the documentation of a number of years of experience, often paired with a general education testing program one needs to pass, or upon the receipt of a project to be reviewed by the faculty of the facility in question.

The main objection is that there is no formal training involved in those people receiving those types of degrees. There is no supervision during the formulation and implementation of the research for that main degree project if there was one at all. There are no extensive readings. There are no extensive homework assignments. There are lists of complaints being formulated with this type of situation concerned.

On the sarcastic side: there is no busy work to justify the college charging so much for the student's procurement of their degree. There are no lofty hours or weeks of it to justify someone's overstuffed salary. There is no discrepancy between the goal of learning to earn versus the reality that I am taught in that traditional institution by someone who is making no more than the total cost of tuition from one to two of the students in a room of twenty (This development is common and is usually true for 75% of your classes). There is no chance for political or social pressures in their professional community to enact some sort of revenge tactic on the student for the would-be supervisor's or administrator's psychologically battered procurement of their own degree. There is no chance for nit-picking the projects that the student does select and complete. There is no directing of student research to mirror my own , giving more support to the tradition professor's own superior conclusions. There is no animalistic puffing out of one's 'professional' chest.

We know all of that as well. Are we tired of the many people assuming positions that they are not well suited to, such as teaching, when the skill that got the teacher or professor where he/she finds themselves is more akin to politics and romance topics in a soap opera? One can hope so. Can we also hope for alternatives that release us fro those bonds of political servitude?

These degree granting institutions which do so due to the experience level of the student applying for the degree may be able to serve a greater purpose than is proposed by the traditional colleges and universities analysis of the situation.

What if one already has extensive graduate training and knows exactly what the rigors of gaining a graduate degree are when seeking such degrees from traditional colleges and universities? What if they already did that, surfed it, came back for more and conquered the petty goals set before that student by the professors of those traditional degree granting institutions? Do these people need to go through that all over again? Why? Specifics of fields? To make someone some money?

These students can consult with enough professionals in the field to get a good idea of what the field is all about, indeed usually having to do that anyway to make sense of the babblings of most of their professors, seeking internships with the application of those book-lessons being the goal. It may very well be the case that after reaching a level of sophistication in analysis required for one or more fields (majors) through the traditional training regimen that the student pretty much knows about what it takes to gain experience in research and applications of most bodies of knowledge.

Maybe it is about grades. In a word, judgment. Maybe it is all about being the judge of someone else's work through the handing out of grades. Well, these 'experience degree' granting institutions may not grade or judge one by coursework completed over a 8-16 week period, but they do state that they review the applications as well as the thesis or dissertation presented. Given the socio-political pressures educational institutions are bombarded with, it may be in the best interests to have a neutral party analyze and judge the materials presented. Is it a project of the level for the degree requested? Is it something focused enough to merit professional designation as a specialist in that field of research? Does it include enough of the rigor to state that it is a good thesis?

Perhaps these 'experience degree' granting institutions can stand as markers for the work being done independently of the social and political climate which is present in today's traditional colleges and universities, and is anathema to the heart of research and the dissemination of that research. Perhaps these 'experience degree' granting institutions can serve as records depositories for those types of research projects. Perhaps these facilities which stand in question can serve as databanks of information and knowledge that the business world would like to search and review to assist them in accomplishing something beyond the scope of the socio-political agendas already established.

It is already agreed upon that a student should go through the mill to the level of at least one Master's degree in order to really succeed in entering and working in the field that they have selected. It is also agreed upon that there is no guarantee of financial success in accomplishing that but rather simply the fact that that student bought their way into a field through funding, political correctness and a lot of reading, analysis and writing.

If however, a given student wants to get to the level of a Master's degree and do their thesis and they like that stuff, what is to discourage them from pursuing the verification and recording of their independent projects after graduation? Do they turn that back in to the traditional degree granting institution for credit? Not without paying lofty tuition prices again and having to comply with somebody else's notion of what knowledge is necessary to do the project (In other words, sitting in more classrooms, instead of doing that project and its research or activities).

Is simply referring it to a publication enough? Not nowadays. It is highly unlikely that the project would be worth the funds it took to produce if one has to chase after yet another set of socio-political agendas associated with the publication race. Might be better to have a depository for that independent research for the publications to sift through as well.

Maybe having independent methods of disseminating research does have its societal advantages. We should look into this idea much further.